Category: Beating Procrastination

It’s the 27th of Feb today but I wanted to let you know that for the month of March 2017 I am choosing to live cleanly.

To me that means no alcohol and no naturally grown substances…. for legal requirements, let’s say no added sugar.

But if I were to think

“But life is only fun when I <insert a vice here>”

I then asked myself the question “Has there ever been a time when you have had fun without? <vice>?”

It’s one of the things I have been noticing a lot with my thinking. If my thinking starts to go into an emotional place, rather than a relaxed one, I try to question my thought. I use the “how would I feel, if I thought a different potential scenario was true”

I hope if doesn’t mean I’m going to second guess myself at every opportunity. However, if the first thought is only to serve me negatively is that helpful?

Yes I agree the first thought might be about a negative situation. For example if I were to break down on the way to an important meeting. I could either lament over the potential lost deal, the additional costs and time delay or ..

I could choose to view those things as just things that were negative and just happened. Is there a difference? Let’s have a look at one of them.

The lost deal: Missed the meeting and lost the deal. Negative thinking could be “Never find a client like this, chance of a lifetime, need the cash etc”

Now it’s a very fine line between what I am going to type and it reading like positive thinking hype. For me at least, it is a about a balance. For example I could say “maybe it could be a yes later down the line, they might review it, I have plenty of money”, would that really help me?

I guess I could feel happier inside and that is a good thing, right? The “I have plenty of money” thought really interests me. If you are looking at

Balance: £23.54 Available

thinking you have plenty of money might be a hard task.

What is the middle way? It could be something like. That client could have been a great one but they chose not to go with you. What can you do today to either

1) find out for sure if the client is lost. 2) Take a step forward in getting another client as some money is better than none. 3) Or do something else to feel like you have acheived something.

If there were any rules in this it would be to try to look at the situation from a view other than the one you have right now.

I am so annoying. I’m sat at my computer “working” but my brain is just not engaged.

For example I started this post at 1633 but now the time is 1643. 10 minutes writing a few words might not seem really terrible, however it’s only taken me 45 seconds to write what I have so far. So for nearly 9 minutes I have been daydreaming.

The title of the post is what I caught myself doing before I thought I might as well write this down as at least that feels like achieving something.

This blog is achieving something though. If I can help one person then it means it wasn’t a waste of time. In fact I do have something decent to share.

Last night I was writing my first post about procrastination. After that I actually managed to work for 3 hours (on and off but mainly on) on one project. So I actually went to bed feeling quite good about myself.

I know, I know, I just shocked myself that I can feel good 🙂

I even got up early this morning to do a few press ups and sit ups. Don’t get me wrong I’m no shining example of fitness but even if it were just 1, 1 is better than none.

Have you ever dealt with procrastination? I have noticed my issue with it from quite a young age. At the time I wanted more motivation. Now I don’t know about you but all these things feel interwined.

See my amazing image below

P – Procrastination leads to things not being done which could lead to feelings of….

F – Failure, due to tasks not being completed this can then lead of thoughts of….

D – Despondancy, depression’s close cousin. Feeling like this could increase procrastination and then the whole vicious cycle continues.

There are a number of things at play here. For example I haven’t been completely useless today. I got up, I’ve eaten, put some rubbish out, watered the plants etc

Yes one could argue “well those aren’t achievements” but doesn’t that depend on your point of view?

Walking 10 metres might seem like nothing except if the person doing the walking broke their back in a car accident.

Counting to 10 seems fairly easy enough, unless you are a toddler and it’s the first time you have done it.

My next argument with myself would be “Ahh, but you don’t have anything wrong with you really”. No I might not physically (except for a fat belly as my young son says 🙂 but some days in the past those tasks might not have been done.

Sorry I was giving you examples of the things at play wasn’t I? Maybe I should try it in a bit more order. Bear in mind I don’t even know if these are impacting my productivity or not.

Fear of the task – Doing any task feels uncomfortable sometimes. Like I should be doing something else but the task is the thing I SHOULD be doing.

Fear of failure – By not doing the task I cannot do it poorly. Maybe I can handle the bad feeling of not doing it rather than the scathing critisism of a job completed badly.

Being a lazy bastard – Maybe I am just lazy.

Not knowing what is going on can be very disconcerting. However if this sound something like you do you might want to go and read this for a minute to see if it resonates with you.